Week in photos: May 20-24

Explosions line the length of the two-mile Dunyang highway viaduct during a controlled demolition in Wuhan, China. Demolition teams had to figure out how to destroy the highway while protecting miles of electrical and gas lines beneath.

AFP/Getty Images

Firefighters help driver Marco Corr from the cab of his overturned truck, in Shawnee, Okla. Corr was driving along Interstate 40 when his vehicle was pummeled by a tornado, which was just the beginning of the devastation.

Chickory (left, with giant tongue) and Chipper pose in costume at the Milwaukee Pug Fest in Franklin, Wis. The annual event helps pay for medical and dental bills for rescued pugs.

AP

A rescue worker totes a dummy through a flooded canal during an international rescue workshop in the mountains of Kazakhstan.

Reuters

New Yorker Ben Goldfarb — who was to snag a degree in marine conservation — sends a text while in line at Yale University’s commencement in New Haven, Conn.

AP

Guards line the border area between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, beneath a battered Palestinian flag. Egyptian police, angered by the kidnapping of seven colleagues by Islamist gunmen, have reportedly kept a crossing into Gaza closed for four days.

UPI

Tracy Hopper and daughter Maci, 13, mourn together during a vigil for Hailey Dunn at Colorado Middle School in Colorado City, Texas. Dunn, a 13-year-old student, was missing for more than two years before her remains were found in March.

AP

A hot air balloon plummets tfrom the sky after colliding with another over Cappadocia, Turkey. Two Brazilian tourists were killed and 23 others were hurt in the collision.

AFP/Getty Images

A Dutch reaches out to a dolphin as it swims by the viewing area of an aquarium at the under-rennovation Dolfinarium, in Harderwijk, Netherlands.

EPA

A group of Afghan children grab what shade they can from a small tree on a hillside in Kabul.

Reuters

A protestor squats atop a stone sculpture on the dome at St. Peter’s Cathedral in Vatican City, apparently seeking assistance from Pope Francis with the ‘political horror show’ in Italy.

ZUMA Press

A visitor strolls through floral artist Rebecca Louise Law’s stand at the Chelsea Flower Show in London.

Reuters

Out for a walk with his mom Mopani is a week-old baby white rhinoceros. The youngster was born May 14 at the Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Australia.

Leonie Saville / Splash News

Rescue workers remove the body of a victim of a road cave-in in Shenzhen, China.

Reuters

Masked Chilean protesters do battle with a haphazard blockade during a demonstration in Valparaiso City.

Reuters

An audience member snaps a shot of the multi-screened stage at a Microsoft press conference in Redmond, Wash. The company unveiled its new console, the Xbox One, at the event.

AP

‘Pentateuque,’ a sculpture by created by contemporary French artist Fabien Merelle stands in a fountain in Hong Kong’s business district.

AP

The pack pedals through a mountainous landscape during the 16th stage of the Tour of Italy race — from Valloire, France, to Ivrea, Italy.

AP

A trio of surprisingly obedient prisoners is led blindfolded to a holding area by a member of the Somali Police Force. Cops rounded up a large group in the Wardhiigley district of Mogadishu in an attempt to weed out members of the Al-Shabaab extremist group.

Reuters

A glob of tar found washed ashore at Bermuda Beach in Galveston, Texas. Small, thick, wet oil masses were also visible in the seaweed over a roughly 2.5-mile span of beach.

AP

Thousands of women wearing red — a traditional color of mourning — march (some rather blindly) in protest of the death of opposition figure Etienne Yakanou, in Lome, Togo. Yakanou died in police custody.

AP

An Oklahoma man seems to be in good spirits as he holds up a copy of the movie ‘Twister’ he found while searching through the rubble of a home in a destroyed neighborhood in Moore, Oklahoma.

EPA

Yes, that’s a tortoise getting acupuncture. No, we’re not sure why, but Dexter here was found stranded on Cape Cod over the winter. He’s now staying at the New England Aquarium’s sea turtle hospital in Quincy, Mass., so we’ve got to assume they know what they’re doing.

AP

Newly commissioned officers throw their hats in celebration at the close of graduation ceremonies at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn.

AP

A Chinese fisherman works at a sewage-polluted river junction point in Xi’an. With inadequate sewage treatment facilites, the Zao River takes in 60 percent of the city’s sewage.

Reuters

Christopher Columbus (or at least his likeness perched high over Barcelona, Spain) dons a giant replica of next season’s new FC Barcelona jersey.

A doll makes an impression on the dried soil of the Los Laureles reservoir in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The Honduran capital’s two reservoirs are at critically low levels.

AFP/Getty Images

Refugees — seen through a barbed-wire barrier — protest amid the Dutch government’s debate of immigration policy in The Hague.

AFP/Getty Images

An aerial view shows an empty, destroyed neighborhood in Moore, Okla.

Getty Images

A man rows a boat toward a shack built on a rock in the middle of the river Drina. The house was built in 1968 by a group of young men who decided that the rock on the river was an ideal place for a tiny shelter.

Reuters

A great grey owl holds tight as a strong wind threatens to blow it from its perch at the Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada.

Megan Lorenz / Rex USA

Bungee cords pull a man from the Kalom, a large well that dates back to the 16th century, traditional Sufi Muslim ceremony in the village of Ndande.The gaping, now-dry well was the site of historic battles in Senegalese history.

Reuters

A Chilean protestor shows little fear as he pummels the side of a riot vehicle with a large branch amid clashes with cops in Valparaiso, Chile.

AFP/Getty Images

Stormy conditions farther off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, make for a bumpy ride around the Misty Cliffs for this windsurfer and his sail-mounted camera.

EPA

A thunderstorm looms over the wreckage of Plaza Elementary School in Moore, Okla.

AP

Fuel tanks burn in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as firefighters work to extinguish the blaze at a fuel storage facility.

AFP/Getty Images

Lebanese soldiers help a group of women escape the Bab Tabbaneh district of Tripoli as both sides of neighboring Syria’s civil war traded fire and mortar shells there, leaving five dead.

AP

Legendary funnyman Jerry Lewis peeks out from behind a program bearing his image during a promotional event for the film ‘Max Rose’ at the Cannes Film Festival.

Reuters

An Indian boy crouches at the spigot of a tanker truck supplying water to residents of New Delhi, India, neighborhood. Many areas of the Indian capital are facing acute water shortages.

AP

Blood spills from the face of a Vietnam War veteran injured in a scuffle with police during an anti-Japan rally at the Japanese embassy in Seoul, South Korea. Protestors want an official apology for war crimes committed during WWII.

Reuters

Beachgoers wade in the waters at Fort Kochi beach as clouds hover over the Arabian Sea. India’s monsoon rains may arrive on the southern Kerala coast around June 3, a late debut stoking more drought fears.

Reuters

A San Felice sul Panaro, Italy, house built in 1562 awaits its turn as restoration drags a year after an earthquake in the Emilia Romagna. What remains of the old structure sits amid a field of pear trees.

AFP/Getty Images

Keeper Justin Fernandes plants one on Panjo, one of his charges at the Jugomaro Predator Park in Groblersdal, South Africa.

Barcroft Media

Police clear a roadblock erected by protestors in Lome, Togo, during the latest confrontation between the ruling party and the nation’s increasingly active opposition.

AP

A woman places flowers outside the Royal Military Barracks in the Woolwich section of London, near the scene where a British soldier was hacked to death in broad daylight Wednesday.

Reuters

Pope Francis is dwarfed by the sculptures at St. Peter’s Basilica as he meets with bishops of the Italian Episcopal Conference at the Vatican.